Agile Tour Hong Kong 2012 - 1st December

Agile Tour is finally coming to Hong Kong! We organise a full day with international and local expert speakers on a variety of Agile topics:

Title : How to suck less with distributed teams
Speaker : Emerson Mills
Abstract:

We all know that distributed teams suck. ( Don't we? ) They perform much worse than co-located teams. Unfortunately for places just starting to move to Agile methodologies, it's often a impediment that has to be worked around or removed. In this session we'll discuss some of the illusions about distributed team productivity and how to get around some of the problems before you can move to co-located teams.

Why did we even use them?!

Distribute teams not people

Giving teams ownership of features and not tasks

Sharing a product development culture

Title: Inject start up spirit
Speaker: Wang XiaoMing
Abstract:

During the past a couple of years I heard many complains from CEOs and senior management that there was unavoidable bureaucracy and large company problems which were their big pain. Many teams suffered unclear project goals, small team but many management layers, ineffective meeting, tons of reports and unstable products. Those problems caused project failure or delay. In this presentation I will lead you to experience a real project in a large company who saved themselves from failure and transferred to a team with start up spirit and doubled their velocity in 4 months.

A real project, double velocity

The pain of founders

Inject start up spirit

Lightweight Agile.

Title: Test Driven Development
Speaker: Ian Lucas
Abstract:

In this session we will explore Test Driven Development (TDD) utilizing XQuery, the XML Query Language. TDD helps facilitate higher quality software solutions, and the modular nature of XQuery lends itself well to the practice.

Among the biggest reasons for the reluctance of organizations in adopting Agile is their belief in the effectiveness of traditional models in estimation and planning. The fear of losing their perceived predictability through their conventional techniques. Agile erases these all and leaves you with a chaotic view of what is to come. But is that truly the case?

We will first explore the assumptions behind traditional estimation and planning techniques
We will then counter that with the assumptions behind Agile estimation and planning
We will show the different features of traditional estimation and planning
We will then show the different features of Agile estimation and planning
We then compare what we actually lose and what we gain when we move toward Agile estimation and planning

"Development" and "operations," as independent organizations, have conflicting motivations. DevOps is the buzzword for the understanding that we've missed the forest (providing value) for the trees (features and stability).

I'll share three true stories about three real organizations.

Exposition (Who is organization and who are the players?)

Rising action (Our business is down.)

Climax (DevOps!)

Falling action (Working together!)

Dénouement (Everyone celebrates their promotions over beer.)

NB. if you work in an organisation with conflicts between development and operations, bring a story to share— and get free advice!

You will have a chance to meet and talk to international and local Agile experts!